In Harmes Way

I don't know if you've looked at our fixture for the end of the year, but our last 8 games include trips to Adelaide, Geelong, Alice Springs, Optus Stadium in Perth and the Gabba. It will be a fair test.

Have I missed something? Next week's game is at the G right? We've only travelled twice to date.

I take any predictions from Gary Pert with a grain of salt. He was the CEO when our banged up 2018 team had a crappy pre-season and subsequent crappy 2019 season - any mention of concern from him or the board at the time? Nuh. All to suck in new members on the positive 2018 finals campaign.

MFC - System, belief, execution

On a side note, I'm hoping the umpiring department can provide clarity on whether it's a free kick when a player walks the ball over the boundary line with no opposition pressure. Langdon was pinged last week for insufficient intent, a port player in the last qtr last night wasn't. Sure it's a hard game to umpire for consistency, but these were two identical examples where the umpire could easily reach a consistent ruling. Highly frustrating.

Should have started this thread at half time

Hunt is playing a ripper and it’s nice to see Maxy clunking a few

Looking at the PA board on bigfooty, it looks like a lot aren't going to turn up. It'll be interesting to see the size of the crowd.

I loved this comment on the Port Adelaide gameday thread: If we don't lose by 40+, sack Goodwin.

Not to forget that Langdon's kicking has improved out of sight from his Freo days.

I was at this game with my family in the top of the main grandstand. When Clarry slotted this one, I yelled out to everyone "How good was that" Didn't get much of a response.

That sounds painful picket

This is probably right, but fortunately he didn't. In BBB's absence, we have had the opportunity over the last week to pump up Sam's tyres some more, get him involved in the Captains Run and bouncing off his team mates vs BBB who's been stuck at home. Another week off won't kill Ben, and the potential upside is we get another great game out of Sam which only strengthens our overall list and depth. If we don't get a great game from Sam, we revert to Plan A. I'd prefer an MFC scenario where Sam shoots the lights out.

I can’t remember anything like our opening rounds fixtures where we played our first four games on a Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. I could get used to the perks of being good.

As long as Jake Bowey is playing….

This was last years named team, which won pretty easily (red not available next week) B [29] Jayden Hunt,[1] Steven May,[8] Jake Lever HB [14] Michael Hibberd,[35] Harrison Petty,[3] Christian Salem C [23] James Jordon,[5] Christian Petracca,[15] Ed Langdon HF [36] Kysaiah Pickett,[25] Tom McDonald,[10] Angus Brayshaw FF [30] Alex Neal-Bullen,[50] Ben Brown,[31] Bayley Fritsch FOL [11] Max Gawn,[13] Clayton Oliver,[7] Jack Viney IC [4] James Harmes,[6] Luke Jackson,[9] Charlie Spargo,[24] Trent Rivers So Bowey for Hibberd, Joel Smith for Petty and Brayshaw for Salem (Sparrow for Brayshaw) are the differences between last year's team and this for mine, with Tomlinson missing out for Lever my only change. I think BBB and Weid are competing for the same spot, I'd be happy to give BBB another week to get back up to full load.

I first started watching the dees in the early 80’s, so love often wondered what it was like watching the wonderous dees sides of the 1950’s where they lost a total of 6 games at the G in the last 6 yrs of the decade. Now I think I’ve got a good idea - we might not have smashed every team, every week back then but had a team playing team first footy with one or more of our stars shining through. Good times ahead.

I'd like to remind everyone who's been potting Joel Smith over the last 2-3 years that (a) he has improved and (b) the coaches have worked with him, recognised his improvement and selected him accordingly. No reason the same rules don't apply to Weid. Give the bloke a chance and maybe pump up his tyres rather than forecast him failing and then delighting in it when it happens.

I'd think the last thing the AFL want is another lopsided free kick count which will be counter intuitive to their broader push to respect the umpires. They'd be hoping for the commentary to be around the quality of the football rather than the umpiring and that last night's game is forgotten by Sunday.

Crazy to consider this thread when you see what's going on with West Coast at the moment.

Two rising star nominations and a premiership medallion in 9 games. With an award every three games, it's quite possible he'll win the brownlow three times this year, the coleman medal, the norm smith and the rising star.

I’m enjoying watching the swannies play, they’re so much more watchable without that [censored] Papley. And hats off to Paddy McCartin, massive first qtr. I wonder how many more goals Buddy needs?

As well as Nibbler's effort in the 4th when he was stuffed from the run, as well as two posters from Trac and BBB (or was it three??).

I feel like these guys